Russel Howcroft: Viewers like ads
Go-to ad guy Russel Howcroft talks up the selling points of TV and dismisses "idiotic headlines."
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Russel Howcroft is well-known for his enthusiasm for advertising, as one half of Gruen‘s yin and yang duo with Todd Sampson.
The TEN exec was also recently appointed as Chair of Think TV, a new body promoting both FTA commercial networks and Foxtel as heavyweight platforms against online competition.
“We are getting beaten up by idiotic headlines,” he told the Australian Food and Grocery Council’s annual conference in Brisbane this week.
“(Headlines such as) `New AppleTV will blow up the TV industry,’ `TV flickers as viewers find new screens,’ and `Fewer people than ever are watching TV.’
“It’s nonsense. Don’t read this crap.”
Referring to TEN’s platform tenplay he noted, “You can’t block the ad, you can’t fast forward the ad, you can’t skip the ad.
“And you know what? People don’t care. They actually quite like it.”
The reach of broadcast TV remains high, but it is also decreasing as it is challenged by new players.
In the last OzTAM multi-screen report 87.4% of Australians watched broadcast television (free-to-air and subscription channels) at an average of 85:17hrs per month on in-home TV sets.
In 2012 the average time spent viewing was 113:38hrs.
Source: AAP / SBS
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20 Responses
LOL!
I have not watched an ad in years, thanks to recording and streaming.
If I am watching something live, I jump onto the computer or get a cup of coffee when the ads are on.
The days of people watching long ad breaks are over.
I record everything on my Fetchtv, I can’t remember the last time I watched something live, or even timeshifted. Ads always get fast forwarded through. The only time I watch one of the catch up services is if one of the recordings hasn’t recorded properly. If I’m unfortunate enough to have to watch something via catch up, I’ll always second screen when the ads come on. My 24yo daughter, who no longer lives at home, didn’t even know there are catch up sites until I mentioned it to her. She streams or watches everything via other means. My 16yo son is constantly on youtube.
As a family we never really watch tv anymore unless it’s some breaking news or something like the X Factor or Masterchef not voice fans we pretty much stream everything wether it from ABC iview or YouTube or FTA streaming service Netflix or social media we avoid the adds as much as possible on you tube you have to view at least three seconds of adds we have four teenage kids from 10 to 25 none ever ever watch TV .its all on line viewing .advertisers are made for paying big dollars for TV adds in today’s society.says a lot about the future of TV in Australia .we have pay tV it’s only ever on for the sport mainly EPL and European soccer games a bit of league and A league .we never watch the other channels .the adds put us off the other channels on pay TV jsut too Many of them to bother that’s where streaming comes in .
Good to hear this snapshot, thanks.
“It’s nonsense.” (Fewer people than ever are watching TV).
“You can’t block the ad, you can’t fast forward the ad, you can’t skip the ad.”
“And you know what? People don’t care. They actually quite like it.”
Three statements, all completely and verifiably untrue, just like so many of the advertisements that Howcroft apparently loves.
I haven’t used Tenplay in a long while but unless they’ve switched to server-side ad insertion (something I very much doubt) then there are a number of browser extensions which very effectively block all ads.
As wise men once said…
“The rich kid becomes a junkie,
The poor kid an advertiser,
What a tragic waste of potential
(Being a junkie’s not so good, either)”
I love my foxtel IQ i timeshif 100% on it and start watching the show about 20 minutes in that way i can ff all ads catchup sites aren’t to bad at the moment but no doubt they will get worse with more and more ads
I love ads so much that I subscribed to Foxtel, just a same they show scripted content between the ads. I also record morning TV so I can rewatch those interesting and often hilarious insurance, oh yes Choosi, I’m looking at you!
lol like the devil asking to go on holidays in heaven!! my ad blocker works quite well the only way you get me is those ads sitting on the hideous watermark
To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies: He would say that, wouldn’t he?
this is a very bizarre rant by howcroft, hes just telling advertisers what they what to her, that everything is fine and theres nothing to worry about, reading the sbs link he actually says if facebook was a tv show it would be the 158th most popular show and says people watch the same amount of tv as they did in 1987, networks need to do a lot better at responding to online viewing than this poor display
The context is important. He is giving a speech as Chair of Think TV at an advertisers event, so it doesn’t strike me as a rant. Russel is always enthusiastic about advertising as we’ve seen on Gruen. It’s the Chair’s role to talk up TV.
I still can’t get the Tenplay app to work on my apple tv.
The first related post under this story, he says the same stuff.
It’s tolerable as there is usually one one ad per break. Wait till they add more and more until catchup becomes like FTA – Almost more Ads and promos as content.
Bad news for you Russel….I can and do successfully block in-play video ads on Tenplay. I know that’s how you make money….so I allow display ads for Tenplay. And you know what? I would allow in-play ads if they didn’t then stuff up the whole video of the show I’m watching – where it goes back to the start or just won’t keep playing!
um, actually you can block ads in tenplay, i have a popup blocker and the screen goes black for 1 second in place of the ads and then the show continues as normal.
On a computer, Firefox addons can certainly block ads on TenPlay.
Interestingly Russel Howcroft seems to have a regular weekly appearance on The Bolt Report. The time I saw him he was talking about election campaign advertising, and spruiking that TV was the most important medium for it!
‘They actually quite like it’.
No, they tolerate it if they are unable to procure ad free content elsewhere.
I pay over $60 a month on VPN and streaming services, and anything ad-supported is dead to me. I’m looking at you Foxtel…
Anything held over by ads is available for free, in HD. I’d prefer to pay for it.
So let me.